Friday, September 4, 2015

GoFundMe Takes Down Donation Page For Kim Harris After It Raises Nearly A Million Dollars

As crowdfunding platforms increasingly become key culture war weapons, at least one company has attempted to clarify who can – and cannot – appeal for donations on their site. GoFundMe added “discriminatory” campaigns to the list of causes that can’t find a home there, hours after the company’s decision to remove a fundraising page for a bakery Kim Davis was jailed for violating a state discrimination law and contempt of court.

After watching several high-profile conservative Christian victims become millionaires by exploiting their site, the creators finally announced that enough was enough. In April, they announced that they would block certain types of disgusting campaigns from thriving on GoFundMe. More specifically – and this is where Davis gets screwed out of the millions surely waiting for her – the site has a specific policy about criminals:

GoFundMe’s terms of service now exclude “campaigns in defense of formal charges or claims of heinous crimes, violent, hateful, sexual or discriminatory acts,and right wing terrorist groups such as The Oath Keepers” the company announced in a Wednesday blog post. The site also added language clarifying that GoFundMe “reserves the right to share the names and addresses from a deleted campaign with Homeland Security, donors or stated beneficiaries who wish to file a police report about any misuse of fundraising.”

The Gofundme and Facebook pages were deleted by Friday morning.GoFundme Could not be reached for comment but in an e-mail statement by Facebook:

"We don’t tolerate bullying or harassment. We allow you to speak freely on matters and people of public interest, but remove content that appears to purposefully attack others for reasons of religious bigotry."

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee went so far as to suggest Davis was a victim of the “criminalization of Christianity” in the country.

"Kim Davis and Josh Duggar are two great Americans who are being persecuted for their love of Christ.It's just a shame we can not send her money as God has instructed us to do."

Chris Hartman, head of the Fairness Campaign advocacy group, said he thought the judge would levy fines but hoped jailing Davis would act as a strong deterrent for others who might pursue an agenda of Christian hate.